Orphanage
by garnok
Summary: Harry looks to help others


It had been a full week since Harry had beaten Voldemort and his Death Eaters at the Battle of Hogwarts. One Week since he had lost Remus, his last connection with his parents. He was starting to feel that more and more. Other people had been lost, some he knew personally, some he had heard about and some he never knew. He had been hiding in Gryffindor tower since the Battle, he was going to slip out today to go back to Grimauld place, Ron was going to go back to the Burrow and Hermoine was going to Australia to bring her parents back, they were going to meet after that. Ron and Harry followed Hermoine to Heathrow and made sure she got on the plane, after she left Ron stared at the gate for a moment and then followed Harry out to the alley where they Disapperated, Ron to the Burrow and Harry to Grimauld place.

Harry entered Grimauld Place and called for Kreacher, with a pop, he appeared and took Harry's cloak and reminded him to take off his shoes before continuing into the house. Harry was impressed because the house was looking far better then they had left it in September when they left in a hurry. Harry had talked to Kreacher when he had been in the Gryffindor Tower and knew the Elf had been cleaning but did not expect it to look anything like this. If was no longer dark and depressing, it was not cheerful by any means but it was definitely looking much better than before, Harry let Kreacher know this too, and the elf was blushing with the praises that had been giving him. "Master has mail in the study he needs to answer," stated Kreacher. "Oh I have mail Kreacher?" "Yes, it is in the study." Harry was wondering who had written him since he had seen Ron and Hermoine already that day. He was not expecting what he ran into when he went into the study; hundreds of letters arranged on the desk. Harry sighed heavily and called for Kreacher, the elf explained that the letters had started coming in the day after the battle and had not stopped and that he had arranged them by the day they came in. Harry realized that he had nothing else to do so he picked up the first letter and started to read….

Four days had passed and he was still opening envelopes, people had written many things, some of them nice like the lady who had thanked him for saving their world, or not so nice, like the letter from Gringotts', that one made him nervous and he was going to have a Solicitor look into that one. They were suing him for damages and theft. He was more than a little ticked off at that but he would deal with them in time. He was about to give up reading for the day but decided to do one more letter before calling it quits. He looked at the envelope and it was a child's writing on the envelope. He was thinking it would be another drawing; several of the magical preschools had children who had drawn pictures of his victory over Voldemort. He thought it was nice for them to do that, most had no idea how difficult it had been for him to do it, but it was nice to know the children were doing okay. He open the letter and two Sickles and a couple of Knuts fell out of it. Some people had sent money and he had put it to the side until he figured out what to do with it, He was going to ask Hermione's help on that one but would wait for her to get back with her parents, he picked up the change and started to read the letter;

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_ My name is Althea and my brother is Timothy, we would like to say thank you for winning over Voldemort. He killed our parents in November and we have been living in the Devon Magical Orphanage since then. I am glad he will not be able to make anymore children into orphans. The money is for Ice Cream, I hope you like Ice Cream as much as we do, this is all we have since they don't have a lot to give us to spend, but we would like you to have it._

_ Thank you,_

_ Althea and Timothy_

Harry was shocked. Two children had given everything they had to say thank you. He wasn't quite sure what he was thinking but he was coming up with a plan. He grabbed the bag of galleons that he had been collecting from the other letters and called for Kreacher. The elf hobbled into the room and stood before Harry. "Kreacher, do we have enough money to keep the house running for awhile?" The elf told Harry to follow him and he did. He followed him into the basement to a vault in the wall. Kreacher told Harry to place his hand on the door and the door would open. Harry opened the vault to find several thousand galleons and stood wide eyed at the Elf. He explained that "Master Black never fully trusted the Goblins to keep his gold so he kept some here in the house." Harry looked at the vault and realized he had enough to last several years without working. He loaded up the moneybag and apparatus to the Burrow.

Molly heard the door knocking and went to answer. She looked at the young man that was like a seventh son to her, before he even opened his mouth Molly had him in a hug and was dragging him into the kitchen of his favorite house in the world. As soon as he sat down she was asking the standard set of questions, mainly "Are you hungry? have you eaten?, would you like some tea?" He asked for some Tea and was feed biscuits too. "Molly does you where the _Devon Magical Orphanage _is?" "It's down the road on the far side of the village, why dear?" He wasn't sure how exactly he should respond to that so he just said "some of the children sent me a Thank You note and I wanted to see how they were…" She told him how to get there and he thanked her and got up to leave. "Do come by for supper sometime Harry we would love to have you." "Perhaps later" was his response as he went out the door. Harry apparated to Diagon Alley and made his way to Fortescue's Ice Cream shop quickly. The man behind the counter was overjoyed to see Harry and was thanking him profusely for what he had done, Harry was still uncomfortable with the way people were treating him but he was getting better at it. He purchased several tubs of ice cream at a discount and then placed cooling charms on it in his bag. He apparated to where the orphanage was and went to the front door and knocked loudly. He could hear the children laughing loudly on the other side of the door and he was suddenly happier at what he was doing.

'Dez' Spencer had graduated Hogwarts in the early 20's and had kids shortly after that. Her husband and all her children had died during the muggle war in the 1940's. She had then started her career as Matron of the Orphanage and she had seen many children come and go since then. She had seen Voldemort rise to power twice and she had done a lot to protect her kids. She had to rely on donations and locals helping her. Once she had even had a patron that donated from London but he had died by the Death Eaters. It was hard to get by but she would take just about any donation. So when the scruffy looking boy at the door told her he had a donation she thought it would be clothes or maybe some furniture. When he handed her the bag of galleons she was stunned. There had to be enough there to run the orphanage for months if she stretched it out. The young man then asked for Althea and Timothy. She was a little nervous about this man but something about him was very soothing to her. She guided him down the hall to a sitting room that had furniture that was miss-matched. He sat down while she left the room to get the children. Shortly two children were led into the room and sat down across from him. "Althea is 9 and her brother Timothy is 7," the matron said. Both children were looking at the floor and not moving. Harry could tell they were nervous. Harry turned to the Matron and asked if there were a lot of children here. She let him know it was less than 20 ranging in age from3 months to 10 years old. He then pulled out his bag and pulled the tubs of ice cream out and set it in front of the children, Althea looked at the tubs and then said, "I don't understand." Harry laughed a little and then said to them, "you told me you liked ice cream and I didn't know which kind so I brought several kinds." Althea looked at him for a minute and started to speak "I wrote a letter to Harry Potter telling him that…." It hit her hard as she looked up at the smiling man. "Hi! I am Harry Potter." The Matron knew right away he was telling the truth. Althea looked like a fish out of water and Timothy was just standing there. Harry reached out his hand; Althea ran across the room and hugged him hard. Harry was thinking that Molly had some competition now in the hug department.


End file.
